Gangsters in Blue

So the guy in the video below had two teeth chipped when, as you’ll see, the cop grabs him by the hair and slams his head into the pavement. After you watch, see if the tape jibes with the sworn testimony the police officers gave in court:

Before the Denver detectives knew about the videotape, they wrote reports and were deposed in court about what happened. Both officers said Heaney was throwing “wild punches” at them, hit the officers in the face and chest and continued to attack them, even when they had him on the ground.

Under oath, Cordova and Costigan also denied knowing anything about Heaney’s broken teeth.

Heaney’s attorney Lonn Heymann asked Cordova in court, “Was there a point at which somebody slammed his face into the ground?”

Cordova answered, “Absolutely not.”

“How did Mr. Heaney’s front teeth get broken,” asked Heymann.

Cordova replied, “I have not a clue.”

The internal police investigation couldn’t find a single witness to the incident. The TV station found three. I can see at least that many in the video.

The Denver Police Department said Monday it is conducting an internal investigation of the arrest.

“The investigation is underway, and no conclusions should be drawn until all of the facts are available and the totality of the circumstances can be considered,” said Division Chief of Investigations Dave Fisher. “Everyone in our country is initially entitled to a presumption of innocence, even police officers.”

True. It’s just too bad the cops didn’t show a lick of respect for Cordova’s rights.

Oh, and after the beating, Heaney was charged with second-degree assault on a police officer and “criminal mischief” for allegedly breaking one of the officer’s sunglasses. Those charges have now been dropped. But not for the video, he’d likely have been convicted.

Seems that the city of St. Louis, like many cities, allows the police to confiscate the cars of people suspected (but not necessarily convicted) of certain crimes. They have a contract with a city towing firm, and said firm was allowing police officers and their families to "rent" confiscated cars free of charge, sometimes for months on end. Officers and their families could also sometimes purchase the confiscated cars at a fraction of the cars’ value.

All of that is pretty outrageous. But it gets better.  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch stumbled onto the story after investigating the daughter of the city’s police chief. She had been involved in a number of accidents with different cars. On several occasions she had wrecked a car, then simply gone down to the towing service to get a 60-80 percent discount on a new one. After one accident, her blood-alcohol concentration tested at .17. She wasn’t arrested or charged. The department says it has "no idea" why she was let go.

The police department hired a law firm, which concluded that the towing arrangement broke no rules or laws. The chief improbably claims he was oblivious to the deals his daughter was getting (her relationship with the towing service apparently goes back to 2002). The Post-Dispatch reports that the chief’s last public statement on the matter was that, "the absolute necessity in maintaining transparency in the eyes of the public."

He has since declined to comment.

(Via TheNewspaper.com)

Earlier this week, I posted on a DUI case in Mesa, Arizona where a police officer oddly saw signs of drunkenness in a woman whose blood-alcohol concentration came back .00.

Now out of San Jose, California comes a story about a well-connected former police officer who, apparently flat-out knockered, rear-ended an Escalade, which then flipped the median and struck an oncoming Jetta.

The ex-cop’s name is Sandra Woodall. We only know that thanks to the San Jose Mercury News. The police department wouldn’t release her name. Woodall now works as an investigator for the Santa Clara district attorney’s office. Her husband is a sergeant with the local police department. And her father-in-law was formerly a lieutenant at the same department. He’s also now an investigator for the district attorney’s office.

Unlike the case in Mesa, where a police officer reported he could smell booze on the breath of a woman who hadn’t been drinking, the cops in San Jose pointedly couldn’t smell liquor on the breath a former cop who was so drunk, she couldn’t remember what year it was.

Newly obtained court documents show there was ample evidence a former San Jose police officer was drunk when she crashed her SUV in March, but police chose not to question her about alcohol use or test her blood.

Soon after Sandra Woodall’s March 25 multi-car accident, she told paramedics that she was just out of rehab, had consumed “a lot” of alcohol and was so disoriented that she thought it was 2006, according to documents. Both of the paramedics who treated Woodall noted the strong smell of alcohol on her breath.

Sgt. Will Manion - a well-regarded senior officer who was the police supervisor on the scene - noted none of these things. Instead, Manion seemed to EMTs to be coaching Woodall on the correct way to answer their questions. He later tried to prevent them from taking her to a hospital, an EMT alleged. Manion insisted that he had no evidence she was drunk, and was trying to determine whether she could be forced to go to the hospital against her will.

But instead of exploring the possibility that Woodall was intoxicated, officers at the scene concluded that the speeding accident could have been caused because Woodall was eating egg rolls from Jack in the Box while she was driving. They decided not even to cite her for speeding - an unusual conclusion in so dramatic an accident.

The police didn’t give Woodall a field sobriety test. They didn’t ask her to take a breath test. And they didn’t take her blood.

Woodall has now finally been charged with felony drunk driving, though no thanks to the investigating officers. It took an outraged phone call to senior police officials from one of the people Woodall hit to get a proper investigation.

I’m sure Woodall will lose her job with the DA’s office. The real question is whether the officers who covered up for her will lose their jobs, too.

Oh, and this certainly isn’t the first time police officers have been caught letting fellow officers off the hook for DWI.

Thanks to Dan G. for the tip.

If it was indeed left by a prosecutor, this comment at the Volokh Conspiracy speaks volumes.

The high school principal who wrote a letter of support for Derrick Foster, the man charged with attempted murder for wounding two police officers conducting a paramilitary-style drug raid last month, has since apologized. Pickerington High School’s Scott Reeves apologized in front of 14 police officers after the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police organized a campaign against him for daring to vouch for the character of a man who mistook raiding cops for armed robbers during the raid.

Yes, Reeves wrote the letter on school letterhead. But why do I get the feeling that if he’d written a similar letter in support of say, a police officers accused of misconduct, the police union wouldn’t be calling for his head?

This is blatant witness intimidation. Foster’s character could very well factor into his trial, which will be an effort to determine if Foster knew the men breaking down the door were police officers. It isn’t at all inconceivable that Reeves might be called to testify at Foster’s trial. Same for the other 13 people who vouched for Foster’s character at his bond hearing, many of whom were also harassed by the police union, including organized boycotts of their businesses.

Maybe some criminal attorneys can help me out, here. How is it that the actions of the police union in this case don’t amount to obstruction of justice?

On May 18, police in Easton, Connecticut conducted a heavily-armed drug raid on the home of Ronald Terebesi, Jr. They began the raid by throwing flashbang grenades through Terebesi’s windows, then battering down his door and storming the house. Friends say at the time of the raid, 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan was visiting Terebesi to discuss the possibility of opening an employment business. According to police, the unarmed Guizan charged the raiding officers, at which point they shot and killed him.

As usual, the police, prosecutors, and state investigators are hunkering down, and not talking to the press. But some information is tricking out. Here’s what we know:

• The raid came after a tip from a stripper who had visited Trebesi’s home. She reported seeing two glass pipes and said she witnessed Trebesi smoke a small amount of crack cocaine he stored in a tin. She made the report at 9am on the same day of the raid.

• There was a reported drive-by shooting at Trebesi’s home in March, though Trebesi appears to have been the victim, not the perpetrator.

• Police found no guns in the home, but did find some cocaine and the two pipes, and have charged Trebesi with possession, which means there wasn’t enough to trigger an automatic charge of distribution.

So we have a heavily-armed, paramilitary-style raid conducted based on a tip from a stripper of drug use, not distribution. In the process, a slight, unarmed man runs toward the raiding police officers, and is shot dead.

I think it’s safe to say that Guizan likely had no idea the intruders were police. If he was aware of the shots fired at Trebesi’s home in March, he likely thought Trebesi was being attacked again. But it seems unlikely (to put it mildly) that an unarmed man would knowingly run toward a team of well-armed, raiding police officers to protect his friends small stash of cocaine.

We’re told over and over that even in no-knock raids, the police announce themselves as they’re coming into the home, and that everyone inside ought to know they’re being raided by cops, not criminal intruders. But if that’s the case, why deploy flash grenades just before making entry? They’re designed to disorient and confuse. That’s the whole reason for using them. You can’t at the same time say it’s necessary to disorient and confuse people, but that they also should hear, recognize, process, and believe the police announcement you make at the same time you’re deploying the concussion grenades.

Finally, it looks right now as if the raid was a reaction to a tip from a single source that Trebesi and possibly Guizan were using drugs. There’s as yet no indication there was any evidence of distribution. The raid was done within hours of the tip from the stripper, so it’s unlikely the police did much surveillance or attempted a controlled drug by from Trebesi.

The police will argue the officer who shot Guizan was reacting to a volatile situation. He had precious little time to determine whether the man running toward him was armed, or whether he presented a threat to the officer’s safety. That’s all probably true, though it doesn’t account for the fact that the police created those volatile circumstances in the first place. It also doesn’t account for the fact that had Guizan been the one who misjudged the threat and shot and killed one of the raiding officers, he’d almost certainly be in Ryan Frederick’s shoes right now.

The best solution is of course to stop these aggressive drug policing tactics, which continue result in unnecessary deaths and injuries. But if you’re going to insist on using them, you can’t keep holding the people you’re raiding to a higher standard than the (hopefully) well-trained police officers conducting the raids.

Guizan’s parents—who lost their only other son in a car accident—are considering a lawsuit.

My friend Pete Eyre gets all Jimmy Justice on an Arlington County police officer. Pete’s quite a bit more polite than Jimmy, though. Which I think makes this kind of thing much more effective.

I’ve also noticed that Arlington and Alexandria officers are also particularly bad about turning on their lights, zipping through a red light, then turning off the lights and continuing on their way.

I know some people think this is petty stuff. It isn’t. The police aren’t above the law. And it’s dangerous to let them think they are.